QA Testing

The task of testing the accurateness of functions is explained by additional influencing factors such as diverse browsers and browsers settings. The heterogeneous hardware configurations as well as the different possibilities of Internet access and consequently application use must already be taken into account when testing the individual user functions. These additional factors place increased demands on the methodical approach and qualifications of testers. In addition, individual tests should be repeated in diverse environments in order to discover differing behaviour, for example in different browsers. Further relevant factors are the cache behaviour of the browsers, security settings and the activation of functionality such as Java Script or the support of ActiveX components. This is an important area in practice because many environment properties which actually should not influence the application do indeed have an effect. Examples are the inadequate representation of objects using a certain screen resolution, failure of the application when using a certain browser and problems executing Java scripts on certain operating systems, just to name a few.

A decision matrix can help when analyzing the factors to tested. The parameters in the matrix are the values to be converted in testing (browsers X, Y and Z; operating systems A, B and C; and further influencing factors) and the estimated risk for combination of values. In essence, the risk for any combination of values can be calculated as the product of the probability that a failure will occur and the costs associated with that failure. The result is a matrix with weighted pairs of values which can be used as a basis for decisions on test case specification and the repeated execution of tests.
Functional test cases, for example, are repeatedly executed on different platforms of the Internet application with different browsers. This places increased demands on test automation.

Flexible test tools lend a helping hand here. Many capture-playback tools now allow a test to be recorded using one browser (e.g. Internet Explorer) and replayed in other browsers (e.g. various versions of Netscape Navigator).